


From what I've tasted of desire

by i_gaze_at_scully



Series: Movie night [6]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_gaze_at_scully/pseuds/i_gaze_at_scully
Summary: Angst!Thanks @how-i-met-your-mulder on tumblr for once reblogging my non-series fic Four in the morning and commenting that it adds weight to Never Again. It got my gears turning and helped inspire this installation, which takes place after that fic, after Never Again, and before Memento Mori.





	From what I've tasted of desire

**Author's Note:**

> Angst!
> 
> Thanks @how-i-met-your-mulder on tumblr for once reblogging my non-series fic Four in the morning and commenting that it adds weight to Never Again. It got my gears turning and helped inspire this installation, which takes place after that fic, after Never Again, and before Memento Mori.

Having grown up in New England, Mulder is familiar with snow. He’s always run hot, never minded the cold winters everyone else dreaded. In fact, snow was a comfort to him. You could hold your breath after a snowstorm, when a hush falls over a newly blanketed world, and watch time stand still. No birds chirping in the backdrop, no cars on the road, no wind to disturb the drifts. Just pure, white silence. He used to dream of living in an igloo, falling asleep under the northern lights. 

Snow in D.C. was a little different. The city, unlike Mulder, was not familiar with the stuff, and certainly not when it came down in droves. By 2 o’clock that afternoon, half the Hoover building had cleared out to get ahead of the so-called blizzard. They were calling for a measly six inches. They wouldn’t bat an eyelash at that up north, but just a few hundred miles south and the city shuts down.

“Where’s the fire?” he scoffs as the custodian high-tails it for the elevator at 2:37 PM.

“‘Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.’” Scully offhandedly quotes Frost with her nose in a file, and Mulder perks up at the sound of her retort. This is the first time all week she’s really engaged with him since she got back from Philadelphia. _Play it cool,_ he urges himself.

“You’d think the world _was_ ending the way people are treating this storm,” he says, putting air quotes around the last word for his own benefit. As Scully continues to read, he stares at her sleeves. Her bruises haven’t even all faded, though she hides them well. _She hides a lot well_ , he supposes. He hates how petty that is, but this whole week he’s been oscillating between enraged and betrayed, bitter and confused. 

“There are supposed to be high-impact winds and near white-out conditions, Mulder. It’s likely that parts of the city could lose power.” 

Mulder reminisces fondly on a certain power outage a few years back. Back before they lived in what felt like constant darkness, before Melissa’s murder, Betts, now Jerse … Scully had worn a bra on her head and their sides split in laughter and everything was right with the world, then. 

“Come over,” he offers suddenly. His own words surprise him and his palms start to sweat. He watches her face carefully as she processes the request, looking for any sign of hesitation or disdain for the idea. Instead he sees those beautiful wheels spinning as she does a mental cost-benefit analysis. He tries to help speed up the process and steer it in his favor. 

“Your car would be better off in the Hoover garage than on the street in the storm, and I’ve got better beer this time.” 

Scully rolls her eyes.

“And I’ll let you pick the movie.” She arches an eyebrow. He’s got her.

“You must really hate being snowed in. Any movie?” She’s already put the file down and is quietly gathering her things.

“Don’t make me regret that… offer expires in 5, 4, 3–” 

“Fine. We’re watching _Pretty Woman_.” She smirks and his groan echoes through the empty halls. Within thirty minutes, they’ve hopped on the bandwagon, peeling out of the parking garage as the first flakes fall. 

—

“Anyone ever tell you you look like Richard Gere?” Scully is examining the movie sleeve while the VHS rewinds, turning it over and prodding the plastic at the corner. He hears it pop, in and out, in and out. 

“You trying to tell me something, Scully?” 

She chuffs. He’ll take it.

"I can see the resemblance,” he continues. “When they make the movie about my life, he’ll be the lucky bastard who gets to play me.” 

“I somehow doubt a movie where the protagonist chases aliens rather unsuccessfully would make it big. Even if it were Richard Gere.” 

“You wound me. Maybe Julia Roberts could reprise the red wig and play you–then it’d be a hit.”

“You trying to tell me something, Mulder?” She catches his stare sidelong as she takes a sizable sip of her beer. There’s his Scully. Maybe her cold shoulder is thawing. She’s here, after all. Even with a tattoo, even though she doesn’t have a desk in their office. He tries to focus on that when the fabric on her upright arm drops to reveal a fading bruise. Scully lowers her arm, shaking it rapidly to cover herself up. Mulder lowers the lights and the VCR clicks. 

—

They watch the movie in silence, pausing every so often to grab another beer or debate a rule. When it ends, the storm outside has blown over.

“I guess you were right about the snow,” Scully says, standing and stretching, leaning to the right, then the left, with hands grasping elbows above her head. A pale strip of skin surfaces between the hem of her shirt and her pants. Mulder looks down into his second beer, half-empty, and doesn’t say a word. He tries to hold it in, but he can’t help himself.

“Mulder?” 

“Was it really about the fucking desk, Scully?” Ed Jerse upended their lives a week ago. Figuratively traipsed around their office and flipped Mulder’s desk over, what, just because Scully didn’t have one? It wasn’t about the goddamn desk, it can’t have been about the goddamn desk. All he can think about is Jerse’s hands on her skin, his fingers around her neck. He’s disgusted at the thought and he’s even more disgusted that some part of him is aroused by it. He clenches his fist. 

“We are not discussing this. I’ve told you.” She is firm and terse, standing her ground with crossed arms and a fixed stare. He returns her gaze and a fresh wave of confusion barrels over him. How could someone so strong have been so weak? He wants to stop, but he has to know.

“Did you sleep with him?”

She looks as though she’s caught a whiff of curdled milk, her mouth opening softly and breathlessly into a small o and her lips curling in disgust. Her eyes are shocked back into her skull and she closes them, shakes her head, and turns on her heel. He stands quickly and tries to catch her arm. 

“Scully, wait–” He shouldn’t have asked. Fuck, he shouldn’t have asked.

“You really want to know, Mulder? You can’t just let it drop? You really need to _fucking_ know?” He’s never seen her like this. He can’t look away from her eyes, icy cold but burning into him, branding him. He gulps hard.

"Yeah, I fucked him,” she spits. “I went home with him. I ripped off his shirt and he shoved me up against a wall–”

“Stop–” Oh god, what has he done?

“No, you wanted to know, didn’t you?” She steps closer, her voice loud and steady, her looming presence far exceeding her small frame. “He pushed me down onto the mattress, knotted his fingers in my hair, pinned my hands above my head–”

“Scully, _please_ –” He’s going to throw up.

“–and I _liked it_ , Mulder. I begged him not to stop. I–”

“SCULLY!” He makes the grave mistake of trying to quiet her by bracing her. She raises her arms the second his hands land there, throwing them off and shoving him back with a firm two-handed push to the chest. He stumbles backwards, still reeling from the blow and her words.

She’s breathing heavy and he’s not breathing at all. There’s no fire in her eyes anymore, and there is no ice. She looks right through him, like he isn’t there at all. She silently grabs her coat and leaves. 

————-

“Where’s the fire?” he scoffs as the custodian high-tails it for the elevator at 2:37 PM.

Scully’s nose is in a file. She doesn’t respond. She hasn’t all week. 

The only signal of her leaving the office was the rustle of her coat as she shrugged into it around 4:30. He doesn’t stop her. 

He slinks into his own coat a few hours later, drives home in the worst of it. He tries rewriting the evening in his mind over and over as the windshield wipers _thud, thud_ , futile against the relentless mush falling from the sky. Maybe she wouldn’t pick _Pretty Woman,_ maybe they’d watch _Dirty Dancing_. Maybe he’d have wine instead of beer. Maybe they’d never even make it out of the office at all. Maybe she’d shut the door and say _Mulder_ in that voice, tug on his tie till _he_ was the one with his fingers knotted in her hair and _he_ was the one she was begging not to–

No matter which way he thinks about it, no matter what he imagines, it always ends with her fire and ice eyes dissipating before him, leaving him alone. 

At home, he turns the lights off, curls himself into a ball on the couch. Snow falls, wet and heavy. The world outside is slowly erased, filled in with white nothingness. Mulder looks outside and shivers. 

—

**Fire and Ice**

_Some say the world will end in fire,_

_Some say in ice._

_From what I’ve tasted of desire_

_I hold with those who favor fire._

_But if it had to perish twice,_

_I think I know enough of hate_

_To say that for destruction ice_

_Is also great_

_And would suffice._

Robert Frost


End file.
